BCAT NEWS:
Tim Halford, Jerrod Shelton, and Bruce Slatten recently attended the National Association of Basketball Coaches meetings in New Orleans at the Final Four. There were 19 states at these meetings. There are now currently 30 states that have high school coaches associations across the country. We are one of them. Many topics were discussed. There was a round table discussion where information was shared about concerns both at the state level and nationally. The Tennessee topics were as follows; classification, grading officials, and growing our young association. In other states all major sports had the same amount of classifications. We, the state of Tennessee are behind in this category. On the issue of grading officials we are not the only state that is attempting to make a move in this direction. Texas is also working to start this process. The state of Missouri has an on line grading policy that has worked well for their state. It is one that we need to study and see if it might work for us. The convention was very informative and will be put to good use for our state. National concerns were AAU, professionalism in our profession, how do we take our game and elevate it, and a few other topics. One thing was clear; we all have problems in our states. The other thing that members need to know is that when they join BCAT that they are also a member of the national association at no additional cost. There is power in numbers. Although we have done some great things it is time to step up and continue to improve basketball in our state. If you have suggestions please voice them and together we can achieve great things for basketball in our great state.